The Sheik

Ordinarily the Sheik dispensed with him at

night, but since his wound, the valet, as soon as he had himself

recovered, had always been in attendance. Some nights he lingered

talking, and others the Sheik dismissed him in a few minutes with only

a curt word or two, and then there would be silence, and Diana would

bury her face in her pillow and writhe in her desperate loneliness,

sick with longing for the strong arms she had once dreaded and the

kisses she had once loathed. He had slept in the outer room since his

illness, and tossing feverishly on the soft cushions of the big empty

bed in which she lay alone Diana had suffered the greatest humiliation

she had yet experienced. He had never loved her, but now he did not

even want her. She was useless to him. She was less than nothing to

him. He had no need of her. She would lie awake listening wearily to

the tiny chimes of the little clock with the bitter sense of her

needlessness crushing her. She was humbled to the very dust by his

indifference. The hours of loneliness in the room that was redolent

with associations of him were filled with memories that tortured her.

In her fitful sleep her dreams were agonies from which she awakened

with shaking limbs and shuddering breath, and waking, her hand would

stretch out groping to him till remembrance came with cruel vividness.

In the daytime, too, she had been much alone, for as soon as the Sheik

was strong enough to sit in the saddle the two men had ridden far

afield every day, visiting the outlying camps and drawing into Ahmed

Ben Hassan's own hands again the affairs that had had to be relegated

to the headmen.

At last Raoul had announced that his visit could be protracted no

longer and that he must resume his journey to Morocco. He was going up

to Oran and from there to Tangier by coasting steamer, collecting at

Tangier a caravan for his expedition through Morocco. His decision once

made he had speeded every means of getting away with a despatch that

had almost suggested flight.

To Diana his going meant the hastening of a crisis that could not be

put off much longer. The situation was becoming impossible. She had

said good-bye to him the night before. She had never guessed the love

she had inspired in him, and she wondered at the sadness in his eyes

and his unaccustomed lack of words. He had wanted to say so much and he

had said so little. She must never guess and Ahmed must never guess, so

he played the game to the end. Only that night after she had left them

the voices sounded in the adjoining room for a very short time. And

this morning he and Ahmed Ben Hassan had ridden away at daybreak. She

had not been asleep; she had heard them go, and almost she wished Raoul

back, for with his presence the vague fear that assailed her seemed

further away. The camp had seemed very lonely and the day very long.